NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/bit/listserv/allmusic/15606

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Date:         Wed, 27 Jan 1993 09:36:00 -0800
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From:         Robert Garret Gruhn <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Music diversity

> This is my first post to this list...so be gentle...;)

The proverbial red flag to BULLS-L here :-)

> I like a majority of different styles of music, I find something worthy in
> every type of music out there.  I mostly listen to what people deem
> "Alternative" (i.e. Smiths, Concrete Blonde, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys,
> etc...), but I've been known to like groups and artists diverse such as
> Amy Grant, Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Pink Floyd, and Metallica.

> The reason for my post is this.  Do you think that the genre refered to as
> Alternative is taking over the mainstream?  I know many people who find
> every group that makes it to mainstream a "sell-out".  I'd just like to
> hear your opinions as to this.  Thanks.

Obviously the first big question is, whose alternative and which mainstream?
Are the legions who still cling to their velvet paintings of Elvis gonna rise
up en masse and get into Morrissey? Not hardly. Neither are they likely to go
out and buy up gazillions of units of Pink Floyd's forthcoming _An Anticipated
Taste of Redundancy_. To these guys, heck, Barry Manilow is "alternative."

Now regular list members are tired of my ranting about how the "alternative"
isn't really, so I'll let Tim speak for me here:

From:         Tim Johnson <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Music diversity

>   I've always been amused by the folks who say "I have really broad
> tastes in music, I like all kinds of rock."

You see? If you go out and educate yourself rather than allowing mass media
to define your culture for you, you won't be able to avoid finding a whole
universe of interesting stuff that the couch potatoes will only be able to
apprehend as an "alternative."

From:         crispen <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Who Done it..?

> Well, Dick, how about record store personnel, DJs, musicians?
> Not much cause for flaming, as far as I know.

Sure there is, especially among musicians. These are exactly the people who
we depend upon for preservation of this aspect of culture. I don't mean to
say that every musician in the world should leep up with every genre in the
world-- myself, I reserve the right to ignore most reggae, because I really
don't like it :-)-- but one should be able to know it's there, identify it,
be able to supply a few buzz words about it ("Bob Marley" and "ganja" :-),
and recognize what makes it different from your own stuff.

Thinking about it more, I feel the same way about record store personnel.
Unless they're convinced their workplace is a supermarket for the Hot 100,
they should feel a sense of commitment to diversity. It should be a mark of
pride to get somebody to buy something he's never heard of, and to have him
come back the next week and say, Wow, you were right, that was amazing!

DJ's in commercial radio can't affect anything; they're just button pushers
working off printouts prepared by the home office (or some consulting firm).
DJ's in college radio should be aware that they exist to help fulfill their
college's mandate to educate people.

> No.  I think the music "marketplace" is fragmenting and there isn't any
> mainstream any more.  This is partly the fault of radio station formats
> which are more geared toward demographics than toward an individual
> Program Director's taste, and partly the result of the wide diversity
> of popular music.

Could you repeat that last clause? I didn't hear it, I have a formatted
playlist in my ear.

> However, I find myself incapable of the self-absorption that seems to
> be necessary to fully appreciate the Cure.  Phony, but highly probable
> quote from Robert (Bubba) Smith: "Success is quite lovely, you know.
> It makes me think of death."

Guys who wear black nail polish are so romantic. Not.

From:         Leonard Watkins <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Alternative..?

> I think the title alternative is the same as "cult-following" that was
> used b4 alternative became the "in word"....but who is John Galt...L.W.

Something Robyn Hitchcock (the quintessential cult item, much to his regret)
once said: "Alternative means, doesn't sell." I think we need more precision
in our interpretation of music industry code words here: "cult item" probably
means "sells to his audience, and if we don't think we can make money at that
level, we should buy out his contract;" whereas "alternative" means "could be
a big hit with a hot enough video, maybe with some cheerleaders..."

And now I become aware that I haven't even really answered Cubby's question!
There is a de facto mainstream, and it's defined by the _Billboard_ charts--
if only because these charts are an important item in radio's calculations,
and radio is still how our musical culture gets diffused. How do you reach
that pinnacle of achievement? You could be an overnight manufactured phenom,
a Milli Vanilli, totally dependent on your handlers (not only the people who
dub in your vocals and teach you the dance steps, but also on the promoters
who pay off the radio mafia and tweeze your name into the Carson monologue).
Or you can do what you do, as strongly and consistently as you know how, and
in the classic _Field of Dreams_ fairy tale, your audience will eventually
catch up to you. Marco's basically correct that this is what has happened to
REM, as soon as Stipe stopped mumbling. And Marco, I don't despise you for
this. Some of my best friends buy REM records!

From:         a memory engraved upon your soul <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Alternative..?

> it's just another label. misapplied, perhaps, but a label nonetheless. on
> the average, everyone knows what people mean by it, so why argue whether
> or not it really means something?

Once more with feeling:

I dunno, woj, I still think the semantics of it are important and ultimately
extremely harmful. The idea is that if you don't like "pop," then we'll sell
you this "alternative," and if you don't like that, well then, you have no
other alternative, maybe you just don't like music! Well, I *do* like music,
and I resent having my tastes rendered invisible!

From:         Goody <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: "CUBBY"

>    First of all, you shouldn't harsh on Chubby for using the word
"Alternative"
> It's just a label. Our lives are full of them. What the hell do
"Rap","Reggae",
> "Heavy Metal","Thrash Metal", or "New Age" mean. All I know is that they help
> me recognize and catagorize types of music.  If you're having trouble with
> other words, maybe you should consult Noah Webster. In the mean time try to
> lose the negative tone you show in your articles buddy.

You're fulla shit. "Rap" means something: it means "talk." And that describes
what you're hearing. "Thrash metal" doesn't mean anything precisely, but it
sure does a decent job of preparing you psychologically for the actual event!
"Alternative" just means "something different," and it in no way tells you
what the difference is-- even assuming there is one, which I doubt. And you
could stand to keep a civil tongue in your head too, dude.

From:         [e-mail]
Subject:      The Prisoner (Herbie Hancock)

> My question is this: Has anybody encountered a record label that they feel is
> nearly perfect in their artistic output? I know that somebody on this list
> feels this way about Enigma. (At least I think it was Enigma.) Does anybody
> (hey Beer!) feel the same way about Bluenote in the 50's and 60's?

I think Dero was the Enigma fan. Enigma did great stuff in their reissue
program-- Can, Beefheart, Tim Buckley. Their own artists were amusing but
not stellar-- other than Holdsworth, of course.

> Maybe the question might best be put this way: If you were stranded alone on
> an island, and you could have the complete catalog of only one record company,

> which one would it be and why?  :-)

Cuneiform. Haven't you guys bought that Curlew record yet?!

From:         [e-mail]
Subject:      VARIOUS PITS & BEICES

> BLOOMIDO SED:

> >OUAC: Urban Ambience will be playing live on the Brandeis U. radio station,
> >WBRS, 100.3 MHz or so, Friday night from 9:30 until we break all our strings.


> ?WILL? there be a TAPE produced?  I'd LIKE to review it, if there is!

Well, we will certainly be recording this-- actually the station will; that's
our payoff for doing this, a high quality DAT master! It is not our intention
to release this as a product. We've played Brandeis radio before, and we view
it as a laboratory-- we go in and improvise, and we hope to come out with some
events on the tape that we can go back and work up into tunes! On the tape you
already have, "Grand Canyon Shuffle" and "Galactic Evening Prayer" are examples
of that kind of thing-- spontaneous riffs from improv events that we developed
into performance pieces. Also, "Catafalques of Thoth" is bits of two previous
Brandeis broadcasts, taken out of context :-), and spliced together!

But yeah, if the tape is at all interesting, I could send you a dub.

> HEAR! HEAR!  Glad SOMEONE knows who Henry Kaiser is... just a SUPER player!

Yeah, he's magnificent. Curious how "alternative" media seem to have never
heard of him :-(

From:         cinnamon girl <[e-mail]>
Subject:      RE: VARIOUS PITS & BEICES

> yes... as compared to new-age music which would relate to 'bologna of the
> mind' :*)

Ahhhhh ha ha haaaaaaaaa! I believe you've hit upon a great truth here!

> OMC:  I wanna get a Can CD... which of these would you people suggest?
>   cannibalism
>   delay 1968
>   future days
>   monster movie
>   tago mago

_Cannibalism_ is a best of type collection, quite a good one IMHO. It happens
to contain all but one song off _Monster Movie_, and I judge you could live
without that song unless you get really deep into this stuff (and somebody
could always dub it for you-- I'd be happy to, and I bet McIntyre would too),
so you can drop that from the list. _Tago Mago_ is cost effective, being a
double album on a single CD, but it's pretty far out there-- there's a tune
that took up an entire album side when it came out in that old technology,
where the keyboard player is tripping his brains out, and a dog that happened
to wander through the studio starts barking along, and they left all that on
the tape. I love _Future Days_ myself, I think it's a terrific album to just
drift away on-- I think of it as the angelic answer to King Crimson circa
_Islands_. Save _Delay 68_ for last, if then-- it's tapes out of obscure
closets, for collectors only. Um, you might also like _Landed_.